wouldn’t agree. No matter how his eyes mesmerized me, or my body longed for the caress of his naked flesh. No matter how I wanted him to love me, fear caged my heart in jagged steel. I scrambled to my knees and shook my trapped wrist, panic prickling my skin with nasty claws. “Take it off. Sorry. I can’t—”
“It’s okay, Ice. Don’t be afraid. You’ll be safe here.” Swiftly, he climbed off the bed, shaking his hair into place like a wet dog. Electricity singed his curls, the hot scent of burnt metal wafting.
I gaped. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t you understand? You’re in danger. He’ll never let you stay like this. If you’re cured, you’ll be lost. I have to find the shiny before he does. Before it’s too late.” He wiped quivering hands on his jeans, rainbow metal shimmering on his right wrist. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back before he comes.”
“Are you outta your mind?” Realization thrummed through me like seasickness, jolting my stomach. Left, right. Hot, cold. Soft, steely. Whether he admitted it or not, the mirror had affected him, too. Made him jumpy, changeable, bipolar or something. Not quite right in the head.
I rattled in my shackle, frustration stabbing deep in my body. He still wanted me. I felt it, and not just because of that lovely hard-on. In the way his breath caught, his kiss burned me, his fingers lingered on my skin in the places that made me moan.
“I can’t let you hurt yourself. I’ll be back soon.” Static arced between his silver wing tips. Sweat and my water still shone on his arms. His molten red gaze gleamed, licking over me like warm fudge.
My sex hurt me in response, my pulse too tight for my tender flesh. He wanted me, all right. But crazyfae was actually turning away from me, with some weird idea he was saving me from myself.
And I could do nothing, except watch him leave.
The apartment door clicks shut behind him, and Ebony smacks his head back against it, metal clanging on wood. His skin grates, his head aches, his claws shudder, and quicksilver blood pounds in his flesh like poison. His burning hard cock demands things of him, gives naughty breathless orders, and it’s all he can do to walk away from her. He’s used to voices in his head, but not like this.
Oh, but she’s an unexpected delight. Her fruity scent still burns his sinuses. The glorious salty taste of her orgasm still sparkles in his mouth. He can still feel her under him, her skin fresh under his tongue, her body pressing into his, seeking him out, finding his pleasure, teasing it out until he didn’t know where to begin with her.
She’s thrashing around in there, thumping at the walls, and his needy flesh screams at him to go back inside, crush her naked body under his, push his cock inside her and finish what he started. First he’d wanted her blood, her bright life flowing over his hands. But that fleeting connection wasn’t enough. His eyes wouldn’t leave her body alone, his lips itched to drape themselves on her skin and pleasure her, his hungry tongue kept sweeping the soaked air for her scent.
He can still smell her delicious woman-smell, strawberries and ash, and as he forces himself to walk stiffly away, a nasty metal ache brewing in his balls, he wonders if that scent will ever go away.
He wonders if he wants it to. The delight of her chaos floods his blood with desperate calm he’s not felt since . . . well, since Indigo dropped his beautiful, treacherous lover in a spiky pit and blacked out for the first time. Accident or not, Ebony was born that day, and Indigo’s never been the same, so closed off and cold, he can’t connect with anyone, let alone fall in love. Since then, Ebony’s wandered the earth, searching, yearning for something he can’t find. Maybe now, he’s found it. Empathy. Acceptance. A twin spirit, reveling in her own madness.
Indigo never accepted him, never understood. But she’s got her own itches, this strawberry liquor girl. She’ll understand blood’s rich lure, the anticipation, but also the disappointment, the delight that lasts only for a second or two before it’s false. She’ll know why he does what he does, over and over again.
Affection, yes. Love, yes. She’ll surrender to him. Only a matter of time.
Crazy, wonderful, precious girl. Indigo mustn’t have her, mustn’t prune her spirit off like